* Robert Gabriel Mugabe | Zimbabwe | by Tamer Youssef | Pencil Sketch on Bristol Paper | Photoshop CS3 | November 2008 | Tamer Youssef's Caricature World *

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born 21 February 1924) is the President of Zimbabwe. He has held power as the head of government since 1980, as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987, and as the first executive head of state since 1987. Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as a Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) leader in guerilla warfare against white-minority rule in Rhodesia in the Bush War (1964–1979). Emerging from this conflict, Mugabe was hailed by Africans as a hero. Since 1998 Mugabe's policies have increasingly elicited domestic and international denunciation. Mugabe's government pursued a costly intervention in the Second Congo War, expropriated thousands of white-owned farms, printed hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars triggering hyperinflation, and harassed and intimidated political opponents like members of the Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe's economy spiraled downward, with food and oil shortages, and with massive internal displacement and emigration. In July, 2008, the G8 released a collective statement saying that they "do not accept the legitimacy of a government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people".

Politics

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